


rendering death and forever

by bringyouhometoo



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Dark One Emma, F/F, Gen, Post-Episode: s04e22-s04e23 Operation Mongoose, Pre-Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan, Swan Queen Week, Swan Queen Week Summer 2015
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-16
Updated: 2015-07-16
Packaged: 2018-04-09 17:22:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4357820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bringyouhometoo/pseuds/bringyouhometoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The instructions are clear; she hasn’t misread them; she knows what to do. Suddenly afraid, Regina pauses with her finger still pressed against the worn paper; against that crucial word on the page.</p><p>(Months after the events of Operation Mongoose, Regina has found the key to bringing Emma back. She thinks; she hopes; if nothing else, she knows one thing. This is nothing to be solved by a simple kiss.)</p><p>Written for Swan Queen Week Day 6: Act of True Love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rendering death and forever

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Grevling](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grevling/gifts).



> Title from e.e.cummings's "somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond"
> 
> Hello, new ship. Let's do this.

It’s after midnight. The house is still and quiet, the hum of the refrigerator the only discernible sound. It’s been this way for months – the house hasn’t rung with laughter, or quick footsteps, or laughing conversations, not for months now, not since –

Regina rubs a hand over her eyes, and breathes out. She needs to concentrate.

And she’s exhausted.

“Once more,” she mutters, running one finger down the page of the book she’d finally unearthed, after months of wheedling and begging and a little bit of blackmail, from Gold’s store room.

The instructions are clear; she hasn’t misread them; she knows what to do.

Suddenly afraid, Regina pauses with her finger still pressed against the worn paper; against that crucial word on the page. This is nothing like the magic she’s used to, but one thing seems clear. This is nothing to be solved by a mere kiss; there will be no convenient pixie dust to tell her what she’s supposed to do; and she can’t quite – put her trust in its potency. In her (in _their_ ) potency.

Hook doesn’t like it, that she’s doing this. Not that Regina tends to shape her day around what the pirate does or doesn’t approve of, but… The reasons for his disapproval are something sharper and less pleasant than concern for her safety, or even the faintly ridiculous notions of chivalry, that he should be the one to save Emma’s heart. His suspicions, his barbed _insinuations,_ hidden away barely beneath the surface, have dogged her for weeks; sometimes, they’re enough to make Regina feel light-headed, like he’s right; like she’s deluded; like this kind of magic won’t _work_ and she’ll be left gasping and breathless, a fish pulled out of the ocean and left to suffocate on the sand. Maybe it’d be easier to just… _s_ _top,_ to let the Prince Charmings and the Snow Whites and the Killian Joneses of this world bring their Emma back, retreat to safer waters and forget this _idiotic_ notion.

But then, it’s not like she has a choice.

 _Someone_ has got to do this; has to at least try; and, whether by luck or design or just bad timing, that person happens to be Regina. Oh, Snow had offered; but she had offered with Neal in her arms and Charming’s protective hand on her shoulder, and Regina hadn’t missed the flash of relief in Snow’s eyes when she’d told her no. She’s offered, which means she hasn't shied away from the sacrifice, which means she's done the right thing, which means she’s still Snow White.

Hook hadn’t so much as offered as told Regina that he should be the one to do it, _by rights._

Regina had looked him directly in the eyes and coolly explained why it had to be her; why it will require a connection forged through both dark and light magic. Which is – it’s not a _lie,_ Regina tells herself, again. The connection is the loophole; their shared experience might prove crucial in bringing the Dark One back from the brink if – and here’s where her rational rebuttal of Hook’s demands falls flat, in that inconvenient _if –_ the first attempt doesn’t go as planned.

Robin hadn’t said a word; had listened to her explain, had read the pages of the book she’d shown him, and left her to it.

Regina thinks she knows why; she looks at the spell again, and reads over that last paragraph. The one that explains how whoever casting the spell doesn’t just have to _understand_ the Dark One, but rather feel what they are feeling; how the spell’s success, or failure, hinges on the force of that connection, the precision of those few choice words that will undo the Dark One.

Her fingers stutter over the word again.

_Soul._

She can’t stop now. She’s worked too hard and too long for this; if nothing else, maybe if this attempt doesn’t work she’ll stop for a while, and Snow and Charming will give up their faintly insulting _that’s not a safe environment right now_ stance, and Henry will come home.

No. This has to work. _Has to._ She’s read and reread and cross-referenced her sources; but she’d known, the minute she opened this particular book, that she’d found the right one. Something about the instructions contained on these pages resonated with something she’d thought she’d lost, buried deep in the back of her consciousness. It feels _true,_ and Regina knows that sounds foolish, knows it’s irrational and unreliable; but, equally, she _knows_ that she’s right in that deeper, wilder sense of the word. Another thing the others hadn’t understood, _couldn’t_ understand; that very specific _feeling_ that Regina thinks she first recognised for what it was when she cast her first real spell. The hairs on the back of her neck had stood on end, and she’d felt something _click_ inside her, like she’d unlocked another part of herself that she hadn’t known she was missing. _Magic,_ real, true, living magic – it’s more, much more, than the impressive light shows; it’s personal, and it’s wild, and it resonates in a way that is simply impossible to explain to someone who’s never felt it for themselves.

She isn’t just pinning all her hopes onto this one, strangely _simple_ solution; she isn’t deluding herself, or clutching at straws, or whatever else it is they think she’s been doing, locked up in her house with piles of books and unwashed laundry, reading until her eyes fall shut and throwing half-brewed potions at the walls when they don’t come together correctly. She’s _right,_ about this. And it’s going to work, because there is simply no other alternative; Regina won’t _let_ it fail.

Three deep breaths in and out, and she’s ready. Regina closes the book, and crosses to the safe. She turns the dials quickly, mechanically, but she still holds her breath until she hears the last click.

The safe clicks open with a worn familiarity, and Regina’s hands are steady as she reaches inside and takes out the soft felt package. As she lays it down on the counter and begins peeling away the layers, she can’t help but think there should be some kind of ceremony – faintly, ridiculously, she has a stab of nostalgia for flickering torches, pillars of smoke, cloaked attendants. _Not_ that she’d go back to that life for all the ceremonies in the world, but – some things, they just knew how to do right; they knew how things like this were _done_.

Here, now… There’s just her, and the hum of the refrigerator cutting through the ringing silence. And the dagger, on her kitchen counter.

Her hands are still steady as she picks it up by the hilt; it sits well in her hand, almost freakishly well-balanced. Like it was made for her.

Not for the first time, Regina thinks that maybe it was. That maybe, there was just some terrible mistake – if she’d been stronger, maybe, or not so scared –

_It should have been you._

Regina closes her eyes, and by the time she opens them the dagger is steady in her hand again.

“Emma Swan.”

She’s ready for the rush of wind, for the faint metallic taste in the air, for the way the hairs on the back of her neck stand up; what Regina isn’t ready for is what comes after.

Regina isn’t ready to see the Dark One, half-crouching on her kitchen tiles.

She’s still in the same white sweater, but it hangs off her now, ragged, streaked with mud and other, redder, stains. The boots and jeans are gone – the Dark One is barefoot, grimy toes and curling nails a shock against the pristine floor, and the sweater hangs loosely over a ragged, ill-fitting dress that seems strangely familiar; a shapeless grey tunic that hangs to her ankles, and Regina wonders what exactly Emma’s been doing over the past few months that has prompted this change in clothing.

And the face –

Regina forces herself to look up, to actually look.

The face hasn’t changed, either.

Emma, caked in mud and with new lines around her mouth; Emma, her eyes bloodshot and lips curled into a savage snarl; Emma, her hair a matted, tangled mess.

But the face is still Emma’s.

Regina opens her mouth, and then closes it again; her throat is dry, and she has to force herself to swallow before trying to speak. “Emma.”

“Why did you summon me?” she says, and Regina almost staggers back from the force of the blow.

“I wanted – “ Regina stops. “Well. I.”

The Dark One rolls her eyes, and spreads her arms low, dropping into a mocking bow; her eyes never leave Regina’s face. “Why did you summon me, _my lady_?” she repeats, with a twisted smirk that never reaches her eyes.

Regina takes a few small steps forwards, still clutching the dagger, and uses the motion to discreetly slide the book behind a bowl of apples. With every step, a tiny drop of confidence returns; she may hate that she has to play it now, but Regina Mills never forgot how to play this game.

“Dark One,” she says, carefully measured. “I command thee.”

“I thought so,” the Dark One laughs, apparently delighted. “And I'm yours to command.”

Regina frowns, and almost asks for Emma, _begs_ for the real Emma to talk to her – but then she shakes her head, discarding the thought. She knows what she has to do. There’s no use in wishing for an easier way out.

“Dark One,” she says again, and then – sparing a precious second to send a fleeting, desperate prayer to whatever higher power might still care – she extends her hand. Holds the dagger out, hilt first, just out of the Dark One’s reach. “If I command you to take this dagger, and not use it against me – or yourself – will you?”

“Oh, I’m bound,” the Dark One says, smiling a toothy smile that sends a shiver crawling down Regina’s spine. “I won’t turn the dagger on you, or on myself.”

She reaches out with grubby hands, eager for the dagger –

Regina holds it back a little, quirking an eyebrow. “Not so fast,” she says, and the Dark One pouts; in any other setting, Regina might have laughed at that. “I command you not to move from where you are standing now. Not. One. Step. And – and no disappearing by magic! You _are_ bound to obey, yes?”

The Dark One pauses, frowning, and Regina sees her work through the steps, searching for loopholes and finding – she can almost see the lightbulb flicking on.

“I’m bound to obey, you know that,” the Dark One smiles, reaching forwards again. “As long as you hold the dagger that binds me…”

“I do,” Regina nods, stepping forwards – the Dark One’s hand is lightning fast, her fingers wrapping tightly around the hilt, half-covering Regina’s hand in hers; and then she stops, and frowns.

Regina hasn’t let go of the dagger.

“…Ah,” she says quietly, with a touch of – what is that? Respect? She sounds almost impressed, almost amused.

“Ah,” Regina says, allowing herself the smallest of the smiles. “And as I do, in fact, still hold the dagger, _you_ are, in fact, still bound to me. And as long as you’re bound – you can’t move, and you can’t turn the dagger on me, or on yourself.“ The resulting scowl is mutinous, and Regina almost laughs. _Just like old times, Miss Swan_. “With me so far?”

“It would seem so,” the Dark One hisses, and all of a sudden all the air seems to go out of the room – there’s a spark of electricity in the air, and Regina remembers with a sickening kind of thud in her chest that she never said anything about using _any_ kind of magic.

_The book, remember the book –_

She speaks quickly, almost tripping over her words. “Emma, listen. You listen to me. Dark One or no Dark One, I don’t _care_ , just listen. There’s a way out of this, but you’ve got to _listen_.”

The Dark One is frowning, concentrating, but whether she’s listening or just working on some as-yet-unseen curse Regina wouldn’t be able to say; so she rushes on.

“The dagger holds the darkness, it anchors it, but it’s a vessel. Not like a _body_ is a vessel, not like a _person_ – if the Dark One dies, whoever killed them would – “ Regina laughs sharply. “Who am I kidding? You’re the expert.”

“Kill me, then,” the Dark One challenges. “Take it. The power. You can feel it, right? _Taste_ it?”

Regina blinks. The lights in her kitchen have dimmed – no, not the lights, the air has dimmed, she’s doing something to the air, and it’s growing dark around them; and something deep in Regina’s heart stirs at that, feels a tug of the temptation the Dark One is clearly banking on – what it would be, to hold that power! – _no_. No.

“Stop that,” she says, then clears her throat. Whatever Emma – whatever _the Dark One_ is doing, it doesn’t concern her. She just needs to keep going. “Listen. The dagger isn’t like that. Kill the dagger, the darkness goes. It won’t have anything to hold on to.  And it won’t be like before, it won’t break out to look for y – for a new vessel. If the dagger was _actually_ _destroyed_ , it would…“

She stops for breath, and the silence is stifling.

“It would destroy me,” the Dark One says finally, with not a hint of a smile.

“It would destroy the Dark One,” Regina says quietly. “Break the dagger, break the chain.”

“Will that be it, then?” the Dark One asks, and for the first time Regina thinks she hears fear. “Will you kill the woman to kill the Dark One? _This_ woman? Look at me. Don’t you know me?”

Regina stares at Emma – stares at the suddenly-wide eyes, the half-parted mouth. “I know you,” she says finally. “And I know what you’re trying to do. It won’t work.”

“Has your heart really grown that cold?” the Dark One asks, and Regina almost flinches. “Will you kill me? Kill this woman to break the curse, without a _word_ to her parents and her friends – would you deprive a boy of his…deprive a boy of his mother?”

 _Mother_.

Regina doesn’t miss the slight catch in the Dark One’s voice on the word; and that’s all she needs to hear to know that this can work. That Emma is still in there, and she’s found the chink in the cage.

“No,” she says quietly, taking another step closer to the Dark One, lifting the dagger up between them, both their hands still clasped around it. “No, I wouldn’t.”

“I know,” the Dark One rasps, laughing at her. “I know you wouldn’t. _Weak_.”

“I thought so,” Regina says. Another step; they’re toe-to-curling-toe now. “For a long time, I thought it was weakness.  And then I had a reason to change my mind.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the story,” the Dark One cuts in. “You finally had a family, and you started believing in true love. How touching.”

“I didn’t need to start believing in it,” Regina snorts. “I just had to know it for what it was.”

“And what was that?” the Dark One asks, and Regina is close enough now to see the way her eyes are darting from side to side, almost imperceptibly. “What is this big discovery, Re – _my Lady_?”

Regina smiles. “Strength,” she says, simply; and then she lifts the dagger, and presses the blade flat against the Dark One’s cheek.

“What are you – “

“What’s your son’s name?”

The Dark One doesn’t answer. Regina digs the dagger in, just slightly – careful not to let the edge touch skin – and asks again.

“You’re bound to answer,” she reminds the Dark One. “What’s your son’s name?”

A single tear wells up inside one bloodshot eye, and runs down one grimy cheek, leaving a shining track against the sweat and the dirt.

“Henry,” Emma says.

The tear meets the metal, and the Dark One’s dagger shatters.

And a ripple of – of _something_ passes across Regina’s skin, and she’s momentarily blinded when the light hits her eyes – there’s an odd tugging sensation against her ribs – and then it’s gone, leaving behind only a ringing silence and an unfamiliar lightness in her chest.

There is a long, _long_ pause.

_That wasn’t in the book._

They’re both breathing heavily – Regina out of exhaustion, and Emma out of shock and fear and much, much more –and their hands are still clasped around the bladeless hilt, knuckles white with effort.

Regina doesn’t want to think about what that _something_ was, or why it felt familiar but new, somehow, like she’d only met it a long time ago, in another form. Oh, the _idea_ of it practically leaps to mind, she can’t do much about that – but that’s all it is, an _idea_ , until she can understand a bit more about what’s happened to her, and (more importantly) who the person standing in front of her is, now.

Finally, Emma draws in a shuddering, gasping breath, and some of the tension draws out of the air.

“Regina?”

Regina laughs then; she can’t help it. The strain of the past few minutes – the past few _months_ – have all added up to this, and she can’t do anything but laugh.

Emma looks, understandably, lost. She tries again, her voice a tentative, quiet ghost of the snarling bite from just moments before. “Regina?”

“It worked,” Regina says, between laughs. “Oh, god, I’m glad that worked.”

“Me…too…” Emma says, a frown creasing the space between her eyebrows; she’s looking at Regina like she’s gone a bit mad, and it’s such a familiar look that Regina feels stupidly close to tears at the thought. “What exactly…”

“You could have died,” Regina half-giggles. “Or I could have. Or we both could have!”

“Right…” Emma reaches out with her free hand to touch Regina’s elbow  – they’re somehow still holding on to the hilt, and Regina is suddenly aware of this fact, of Emma’s warm skin against hers where moments earlier there was only a deathly cold grasp. “Do you, uh. Need to sit down?”

“No, no,” Regina shakes her head, still gasping; she feels stupidly ridiculously light, and she doesn’t think it’s going to stop any time soon. “I’m just so…”

“So…?” Emma prompts, when Regina doesn’t say anything. She’s smiling, just a little, a small half-smile that is probably supposed to be comforting but just looks eager. Regina supposes it’s been a few months since her face has expressed any genuine emotion; no wonder she’s out of practise.

“I’m just so – I’m so happy you’re alive,” Regina settles on, with a kind of half-hiccupped laugh; it’s only after she’s finished saying them that she _hears_ the words. A strange, misplaced lurch of horror washes over her.

Emma smiles then, a real, wide smile, and the horror is only mounting. _Oh god._ And then, because this conversation can’t _possibly_ get any worse and Emma Swan has never yet been one for subtlety or tact so why start _now_ , she adds, “Me too.”

Abruptly, Regina pulls her hand away, letting the hilt clatter to the floor. “Your _ridiculous_ parents would never have forgiven me,” she says brusquely, half-turning away.  Her face is warm. “Besides. Henry’s missed you.”

“Yeah,” Emma nods, still just _smiling_. Regina feels a little faint. “Henry. Of course.”

**Author's Note:**

> So! Funny story! Like three weeks ago, my pal Bailey convinced me to write her a SQ fic with the prompt "I'm so glad you're alive." I had not seen any of the show since s1, which I watched three years ago. But for some reason, I decided that my fandom osmosis powers were strong enough to let me write something silly and funny for her. What came out was a 2k feelings fest, and in the process of writing it I somehow...started shipping it. So then, obviously, I went back and watched the whole thing. Three weeks later, I am so far into this trash life and I'm still not sure how it happened. So I figured, why not rewrite the gateway fic now that I can make it kind of canon and in character, and it happened to work nicely with Swan Queen Week's prompt for day 6 (Act of True Love). Weirdest fandom origin story ever. I don't care I love it.
> 
> (For your perusal: here is the original version, which like... I am still freaked out by how UNCANNILY RELEVANT THAT WHOLE THING ABOUT STRENGTH TURNED OUT TO BE.)


End file.
